The Daaé Case
by Igenlode Wordsmith
Summary: Jos Perlman wants to keep his job with Hammerstein. Raoul just wants to keep his wife. Maybe they have more in common than they think.
1. Christine Disembarks

**Chapter 1: Christine Disembarks**

"What do you mean, the Daaé's disappeared?"

John McWhirter was a big man with gray in his wiry black beard, but his voice had cracked into a schoolboy's high-pitched incredulity, and Jos winced. When the boss blew his top, he could make you feel mighty small. And right now, in the face of a foul-up this colossal, Jos Perlman would give a fair sum to shrink clear away and out of McWhirter's sight.

Old Hammerstein himself was a decent enough guy to work for. Head off in the clouds half the time, and apt to wander out without the price of a trolley-fare in his pocket, but when you'd made as much moolah as Oscar Hammerstein had — and laid it out on schemes as ambitious as this one, to challenge the New York Met at their own game and bring the best of European opera to the heart of town — Jos guessed the world could forgive an eccentricity or two. The man dreamed, and dreamed big.

But to drive his dreams through into brick and mortar, he had men like John McWhirter. And McWhirter had a personality abrasive enough to overspill the room at the best of times and set the lady secretary's ears burning. He glared down now at his diminutive subordinate from behind the towers of paperwork that lined the great teak desk — paperwork that, until this morning, had bulldozed aside every conceivable obstacle in the way of Hammerstein's new Manhattan Opera — and Jos could only flinch.

The boss was in the right of it, after all. When a deal went this disastrously wrong, one way or another heads would roll.

But he'd do his darndest to make sure his wasn't one of them. This job working for Hammerstein meant too much to him; it had been his big new start. And when it came down to it, getting the Daaé woman to her hotel had been none of his responsibility.

McWhirter swept aside a heap of files and slammed his fist down on the desktop thus revealed, making the inkwells clatter.

"Disappeared? What the blazes is that supposed to mean?" He pulled out a vast red handkerchief from an inner pocket — always a bad sign — and vanished momentarily into it with a trumpeting sound, emerging with streaming eyes and a temper clearly more het-up than ever. "Christine Daaé was on that ship all right. We were billed for the tickets. Her name's on the customs lists. For crying out loud, that no-good husband of hers kicked up a stir that's on the front page of every cheap rag in town. So just because some joker sent up a garbled cable to claim the _Persephone_ would be an hour late docking and made sure the Hammerstein party — Mr. Oscar and his sons — would miss the whole thing as a result, it doesn't mean the lady vanished in the meantime into thin air!"

Hammerstein had been made to look a fool in consequence of that particular prank, if prank it had been; Jos, who'd looked into it, had begun to have his doubts about that. The impresario had kicked up a fuss there on the dockside, but the band had gone home, the crowd had long since dispersed, and in the absence of the star guest they'd had to give up on the whole grand reception: champagne, bunches of flowers, and a personal greeting from the great man himself to welcome her to America's shores.

As publicity for the Manhattan Opera it had been a disaster. The old man and his sons had been driven back in grim silence, McWhirter had by all accounts let loose on anyone unlucky enough to be in earshot, and in the end by way of making amends someone had dispatched a man to leave the flowers at Miss Daaé's hotel. And that should have been that.

Only it hadn't been. Because Miss Daaé hadn't ever made it to the top-star accommodation they'd reserved for her. She'd left the docks and gone missing instead somewhere across town. And now the whole mess had been dumped on his, Jos Perlman's, lap.

In hindsight, maybe 'disappeared' _hadn't_ been the most tactful way of putting it.

McWhirter took a deep breath and started in again with a tone of sweet reason that could have stripped paint at twenty paces. "Hundreds of people saw the Daaé come off that ship, Perlman, so don't try to tell me she's not in New York. Just who sent that prank cable? And for Godsakes explain to me in words of one syllable just how it comes about that the diva of the century — _and_ her tag-along titled lackey, _and_ her ten-year-old son — can have driven off into the wide blue yonder without any of us having the faintest idea where to lay hands on her?"

"Okay, listen, boss." Jos swallowed, planning how to make this sound good.

"You asked me to look into it this morning, soon as we heard she hadn't showed up at the hotel." It couldn't hurt to remind McWhirter that Jos, at least, had had nothing to do with the original fiasco. Hadn't, in fact, known a thing about it until the boss had called him in at eight-thirty a.m., breathing fire and brimstone, pulled him off his job running checks on the finance deal some mogul in steel was trying to sell Mr. H, and set him to track down the missing headline act for their imminent gala night. It wasn't quite the first he'd heard of Christine Daaé, being as the Hammerstein publicity machine had plastered posters all over town, but it was the first inkling he'd had that anything was wrong — and the closest he'd come to any involvement in that particular department.

Jos Perlman was a fixer. A mostly legitimate one, these days, but he had his contacts. And booking and escorting visiting sopranos to their hotel accommodation was no part of what McWhirter paid him for.

Fixing up embarrassing blunders for the management, however, was. Well, he'd done his level best in the few hours he'd had. He sighed. Something told him that line of argument wouldn't go down well.

"No-one's owning up to that cable, but I traced the guy who was meant to take those flowers up to Miss Daaé. Turns out someone thought it would be a good move to detail René Pontpers — the Canuck — for that particular job, on account of he speaks French." And poor old René, with three children at home in a two-room apartment and a fourth on the way, hadn't felt he could say no.

"Thing is, his English ain't always too good. He asks around, gets told she got into a carriage and went off. Now we'd reserved her the Imperial Suite down at Astor's new hotel on East 55th — fixed it all up when the steamer tickets were booked. So naturally he just assumes they sent a vehicle over to pick her up.

"He gets in a cab, takes the flowers across, and asks for them to be sent up to Miss Daaé's suite. And the hotel tells him sure, okay. Of course they do — she's booked in, and right then they're still expecting her. So the bell-hop decks out her empty room upstairs to read _Welcome to the USA_ and René reports she's safe and sound at the St Regis and goes off home to his wife and kids. And no-one knows different until the message-boy gets sent round this morning with the final details for the gala... and comes back to the office saying Miss Daaé never showed, and the hotel don't know where she is."

McWhirter's glare skewered him from beneath twitching brows. "Nicely put, laddie. Only you're leaving out the vital information."

He drew breath, then, as Jos began the obvious question, let loose with both barrels at full volume. "Just where the blue blazes is Miss Daaé now?"

Which, as Jos was all too well aware, was the make-or-break question for his career. He opted for honesty.

"We don't know. Yet." He held up a hasty hand. "Give me a few more hours to look into it, Mr. McWhirter, and I'm sure there'll be some perfectly simple explanation."

"Simple?" John McWhirter let rip a colossal, derisive snort. "Let me lay out for you something that's simple."

He drew out his watch. "The time is currently twenty-five minutes of one. In two weeks we have our opening night. Rehearsals started a month back. But tomorrow evening at seven o'clock, the Manhattan Opera House opens its doors to a gala preview for a cloud of the most glittering society this town can provide. Now we promised them — Mr. Oscar Hammerstein promised them — Christine Daaé there on that stage singing her pretty little heart out. We cabled Europe and drew up her contract. We booked her passage and laid out a hefty fee. What are we going to do without her — ship over the Tetrazzini to offer them next week, half price?"

He leaned over the desk and jabbed a broad finger squarely at the chest of his subordinate. "So you trace her, Perlman. You get her over here and you get that contract signed. You're on the payroll as a fixer — you fix this."

The 'or else' hung in the air without being spoken. It didn't need to be.

Jos kept his voice light and confident; no point in letting McWhirter know he'd gotten to him. "Sure thing, boss. Don't I always deliver?"

And after all, he told himself, making his retreat under the secretary's sympathetic eye, just how hard could it be to track down a soprano who'd taken the wrong hotel?

~o~

It was a question he'd found himself echoing with increasing bitterness as the evening wore on. He always prided himself on having his ear to the street. He had contacts among the traffic cops, and shadier informants elsewhere. He knew, none better, when he was being stonewalled or just plain lied to. What he didn't know was why.

He'd gotten the full details of Christine Daaé's dockside arrival — plus a share in the usual sob-story over editors with a tin ear and typesetters who couldn't spell God's own language — out of Lindy Weiss of the _Sun-Star_ , for the price of a couple of cheap hot dogs at the lunch-stand over in Central. Weiss had tipped the bill of his cap back, run a finger round a fraying collar, and waxed lyrical over the latest Parisian fashions and the Daaé's sweet-faced little boy, like the sentimental old lush that he was, until Jos had given him the elbow. Then he'd coughed up with the pay-dirt.

The whole thing had the makings of a juicy scandal in high society, by the sound of it; but that was more in the _Sun-Star_ 's line than any concern of the Manhattan Opera. McWhirter wouldn't give a dime for the singer's private life, or whether her better half wanted her referred to as Madame Whatever or even the Divine Christine. Not so long as she showed up and sang.

Trouble was, Jos was no longer so sure the Daaé was going to do either. This was more than just a case of taking the wrong hotel — and he didn't see that the lady's marital troubles had anything to do with it either. It was starting to look to him as if Oscar Hammerstein's star soprano had been shanghaied.

She'd certainly been expecting to be met at the docks; the husband had been quite vocal on that point. And Jos had gotten a good description of the carriage and the collection of human oddities that had whisked her away. It should have been easy enough to trace the route they'd taken and find out where the lady had spent the night — willingly or not.

But all his usual sources had, to a man, gone silent or made themselves mysteriously scarce when he tried to press enquiries. For all he could find out to the contrary, that phony cable had written itself and the carriage had simply vanished into thin air at the first intersection, and no-one would admit otherwise — or increasingly, agree to talk to him at all. Jos had wasted hours trailing round back-streets and tenements, past mounds of garbage in the alleys and strings of flapping laundry hung between the houses, and the nearest he'd gotten to an honest answer was the small shoe-shine boy who'd piped up, "Cain't talk to you, mister. Ma says not, and I's scared."

From the hotels he got a straight answer, but an equal blank. No, sir, Miss Daaé was not on the guest list. No, she had not made enquiries of them. No, they really had no idea where she might currently be resident. And a very good day to you too, sir, thank you.

He'd been to the back doors and bribed every bell-hop in town. Same reply. At the end of a long day of frustration he'd worked his way all the way over to Coney, on the hunch that maybe the freakish description of the three who'd whisked away Miss Daaé hadn't after all been so wide of the mark. When he'd dropped into the nearest low dive out by the pier, he'd had little more on his mind at that moment but a dry throat and a general aching sensation in the region of his feet. Telling the story afterwards, he could never say what flash of inspiration had led him to add a final off-hand query to the barkeep on the tail of his order.

There'd been an assortment of other patrons at the bar: longshoremen, carney barkers and the usual down-and-outs. There was an air of desperation that spoke more clearly than frayed cuffs or string belts, and it marked a man out like a sickness from which the others shrank. Failure, in this town, held an odour of its own.

"Who's that?" Jos jerked a casual thumb over his shoulder. "Stuffed-shirt in the corner, flashy linen suit."

Some bankrupt, he'd thought, and put the guy down as a possible pier-jumper. Once he'd sunk a few more glasses, maybe. It took Dutch courage to drown yourself round here, and this one didn't look the type with much guts to spare.

The barkeep shrugged. "Calls himself de Chagny. Got woman troubles. S'all I know."


	2. Why Does She Love Me?

**Chapter 2: Why Does She Love Me?**

The husband. Which made him the one who signed the cheques. Connections began to come together with an almost audible mental click.

Jos had been steadily coming to the conclusion that someone had gone to a lot of trouble to whisk Christine Daaé out of Oscar Hammerstein's reach — someone with influence on both sides of the law. But this husband of hers was another matter altogether. Hard to imagine anyone covering up for the likes of him... but when it came to enforcing contracts, he might turn out to be just the leverage the Manhattan Opera company needed.

Assuming he stayed upright long enough, that was. Out on the street, lights were flaring to life and the sky was getting dark, but the guy in the creased linen had clearly been in here a whiles already and looked set for the night. The lamps on the end of the bar had heavy glass shades and it was hard to make out much — guess the patrons round this place mostly liked it that way — but Jos knew a drunk when he saw one. The amount of effort this guy was putting into just staying in his seat, he'd had more than a glass or two already. Or four, or five.

Which meant, if luck held, he wasn't likely to be in any state to be holding out about the whereabouts of his wife. If Jos was any judge, the trouble was more apt to be getting him to _stop_ talking. Good news for enquiries; bad news for the marriage.

Jos found himself looking across at the dim figure's averted face with distaste. So the Daaé had married a lush, had she? Not that it was any of his business, but... he'd seen pictures of her, in the _Illustrated Post_ and on publicity material, and even allowing for the artist's flattery or dated photos she'd looked young and fresh. Innocent, almost, for all that she had a kid old enough for grade school. It kind of hurt to think of her making one of those European aristocratic marriages to some red-nosed old soak, with a list of titles about as long as the check at his wine-merchant.

 _Turning sentimental, Perlman?_ He could hear the ghost of McWhirter's snort. _Trouble with you, laddie, is you're starting to get old..._

Jos sighed, thrust sentiment back down, and went to tap the other man on the shoulder. "The name's Perlman, sir, Jos Perlman, and I'm looking for a lady by the name of Christine Daaé. Now, I'm guessing you might be her husband?"

The face that looked up at him was young, and ravaged, and for a moment Jos was thrown off balance. Either he'd gotten the wrong guy, or the Daaé hadn't married into middle-aged money after all. Ten years ago, this one couldn't have been much more than a kid; even now, beneath the blur of drink, he still had the ruin of his youth. And of his looks.

Then the hazy eyes struggled back into focus, with a flash of bitterness that added another ten years.

"The husband, yes: _Mister Christine Daaé_ — that is how you say it, I think?"

His English was good, but he was French as they come, and even after René it took Jos a moment to get his head round the accent. And if ever he'd heard a chip on the shoulder, he was hearing one now.

He could work that to his advantage, maybe. Jos signalled to the barkeep for another drink and sat down uninvited, keeping his face a pleasant blank. Just a friendly conversation over a couple of glasses. That was the way to play it.

"I work for Hammerstein, sir. We've been getting a mite concerned — we were expecting you yesterday."

"Hammerstein." Another bitter twist. "That would be Hammerstein who does not arrive? First with the ship, then with the note at the hotel last night—"

"Wait." Jos frowned; took an unthinking gulp at his drink. "The docks — that was an honest mix-up, and we'll do our best to make it right. But Mr. Hammerstein sent no note last night. How could he, when we didn't know where to lay hands on you? Now I don't know what's been going on, but—"

"I will tell you what has been going on," the other man broke in swiftly. "Mr. Y has been going on. You wish Christine to sing for Hammerstein? Then you are too late. Everything is too late. He makes puppets of us all... and she sings for him now."

And a stream of self-accusation to follow, tumbling out unhappy and impassioned... but Jos scarcely heard the rest. He'd caught his breath. _Mr. Y._ Of course. Everything — the sense of groping through smoke, of unseen forces behind mirrors — made sense. Who else could slip a soprano away through the streets of New York and silence all whisper of her passage?

The man was notorious in certain circles, both inside Coney Island and out; the one-time circus freak who'd built a business empire in ten short years, living the immigrant dream. Like Hammerstein himself, who'd sold his violin to come to America, and worked his way up from the factory floor until his patents and inventions brought him a fortune with which to fund the true love that he had never forgotten: music. Above all, opera.

The difference was, Hammerstein fought fair — by all Jos had heard, he could be a quixotic old cuss. No-one could ever say that of Mr. Y.

No-one knew his real name. No-one, now, saw his true face... though the story went that in the old days in the freak-show tent he'd been billed as "Half-Man, Half-Monster". That was whispered behind closed doors, though. If you wanted to do business with Mr. Y, then you didn't mention the mask. Jos had seen him in person, once, the frozen blank of the white shield that hid half his face no more cold and ruthless than the look on the living half. His reputation, though — that was all over the city. Maybe no-one knew the man behind the pseudonym, but they sure knew the way he did deals.

Mr. Y got what he wanted. He got it on terms no-one else could get. Jos Perlman's line of work had sent him up against that kind of so-called negotiation before; it wasn't pretty.

And now it looked like the man had broadened his sights from vaudeville into opera. Jos scowled. What use could Phantasma have for the Daaé on that novelty stage? What kind of nickel-and-dime crowd would show up to hear her? Mr. Y was running some deep game — he'd pulled out all the stops to keep her for himself — but it made no sense.

He tucked the problem back to chew over at leisure, and turned half an ear to the rambling miseries of the husband. Who, by his own account, was little more than bag and baggage that dangled in her wake and hurt her soft heart every time he turned around. Jos didn't know how many glasses the guy had had, but he was wide open and clearly well on his way down the bottle.

Jos made all the right noises — he'd been there himself when Sal sent back his ring — but he had a notion it was a brand of booze-fueled honesty the other man was apt to regret in the morning... especially if there was a chance they could do business. Best calm him down. He reached out a hand — just what in tarnation was her husband's name again? — and laid on his best René-accent. "Listen, Mon-sewer dee Shag-ney..."

He got a reaction, if not quite the one he'd been aiming for: blank disbelief like a slap in the face, and a dawning fit of drunken laughter that wavered on the edge of a sob. " _De Chagny_. Our name is de Chagny. Is that so difficult in America to understand?"

"It's a mite difficult in America to pronounce," Jos said with an honesty he hadn't intended, and got an incredulous look.

"And 'Jos'? What kind of an appellation is that?"

"My old man was a Bible-thumper. It's short for Jehoshaphat." It wasn't something he was in the habit of owning to, but he had the satisfaction of seeing the other struck momentarily speechless. He could feel a flush spreading across his lean cheeks, and coughed. "But I'd be obliged, sir, if you don't spread that about."

Their eyes met. And then somehow the whole crazy frustrated impossibility of the day got the better of him, and they were both laughing helplessly. His head went down on the table amid the empty glasses and the marks of the barkeep's cloth, and the tears came to his eyes... and in the end it was the younger man who held out the wavering grip that got him back upright and in control of himself again.

"Your secret is safe with me, Jé-ho-sé-phat." He made a fair stab at it, for a first attempt by a Frenchman. "As for me, I am Raoul, Vicomte de Chagny — but perhaps it would be kinder to us both to say simply 'Mr. Rowl'."

Jos raised an eyebrow and the other shrugged in an oddly fluent foreign gesture. "The English servant — steward — on the ship. It was the best he could say, and less... painful to the ear."

"Mr. Rowl." Jos tried it over, none too certain what McWhirter would think. But somewhere in those last few moments the two of them had crossed an unspoken line into alliance. A shrug of his own. "Sure. Okay."

They shook hands, gravely.

Jos looked at him and took a breath. "Listen... you want your wife out of Mr. Y's clutches, and so do we. Hammerstein needs her back on stage for tomorrow night and signed to the Manhattan Opera. We brought her over here, finalised the deal — surely there's got to be some way to fix this. Where is she now?"

"In the hotel where they brought us. In Phantasma." Laughter had drained abruptly from her husband's face as memory returned. "Where she wishes to be... and so there is nothing to, as you say, fix. She _knew_. Since last night, maybe before. She knew of his plan, and said nothing."

His mouth twisted. "'Things have changed, Raoul' — in effect, they have changed! Since our wedding day—"

But that too was cut off with a groan. A nod to the barkeep brought another drink to take the place of the empty at his elbow, though by the sour look he got in return it was a tab that hadn't been settled in a while.

He threw back half the glass in a gulp that spoke of a deal too much practice, and set the rest down on the table with a hand that was not quite steady, staring down into its depths.

"But then, since our wedding day"—his voice shook—"I have failed her in every way conceivable, and in all that I do. Including this." A jerk of his head towards their surroundings. He did not look up.

"If you would appeal to my wife as an artiste, my friend, then it is not my assistance that will help you. And if it is of loyalty that you would speak... then mine is but a poor example."

"Maybe so. Save I'm guessing you still care for her," Jos said softly, watching the averted face and remembering words of his own, years back. "Else it wouldn't hurt so much."

"I would die for her." It was jerked from the Vicomte — from Mr. Rowl — in a low, savage undertone that seemingly caught both of them by surprise. His head came up. The eyes were bleak. "I meant to do so once. In Paris, when we were young, at the Opera. And it is that which has destroyed us since."

Jos, waiting, said nothing — he'd found long since that the best way to get answers was to leave a space for them to fill — and after a moment the other went on, words spilling out as if from an open wound.

"I went to save her. To fling my life between Christine and the monster who held her by deceit and by threats: that same monster of murder and madness who holds us now in his grasp. In America you think your Mr. Y harmless perhaps, a rich eccentric of light entertainment? Believe me, he is not!"

Jos, for one, could have assured him of that. But he kept his peace.

"He was the Opera Ghost, the evil genius that haunted every step she took. I fought to free her, and I failed. And at the end, foolish and heroic as I saw myself, I offered up my life for her liberty... and he slipped the rope about my neck and mocked at us both, vowing instead that I would find my grave if she would not be his. I would rather — a hundred times rather — have died in that moment than have seen her trade her life away to rescue mine."

"But you made it out alive, and married the girl," Jos cut in quickly; he'd never had the taste for melodrama. Leastways, not in front of the stage curtain. "So I'm guessing the cavalry turned up in the nick of time?"

" _Cavalry?_ "

The utter blank look told him maybe that metaphor hadn't made it over to Paris, France along with Annie Oakley and the rest. "In a manner of speaking. A rescue party."

"There was no rescue party." Mr. Rowl took a breath. "Only Christine. I hung there like a pawn in his game, and she... she overcame my folly and saved us both. When he released me, I could barely stand, and it was she who must be my strength and hasten to my side."

He laughed a little, at his own expense, and held up his glass for a moment in salute before downing what remained as if it was water. "My friend, it is a hard thing to be rescued by a maiden in distress. I loved her. I was grateful. But... I needed to prove myself, to be a man for her, and all too often in our marriage I could not. She understood. She forgave — and it is ugly to admit, but her forgiveness was the hardest of all to bear. The more boorish I became, the less of a man I knew myself to be and the more often as a husband I failed her.

"I began to take risks, to put my life to the hazard, and to play at cards for stakes we could not afford. At least in that world I could hope to win and be strong, to bring home the victory and throw it, as you say, in the face of my unhappy wife. And when my losses grew too great... there at last was something she could not brush away with a forgiving smile; if I could strip that sainthood from her, then I could drag her down to meet me in my hate."

He turned the empty glass between his palms, setting it back on the table with exaggerated care.

"I would have died for her. But in the end, I tried to destroy all that I loved. And now — now to her I am a burden, a second child in her care, and of the most petulant. In effect, one has to laugh. We are fools, are we not?" But his voice broke on that last word in something a long way from amusement.


	3. Once Upon Another Time

**Chapter 3: Once Upon Another Time**

"I guess... what we do don't always look too good, when you step back," Jos said slowly, measuring out words like sips at the rough liquor he still nursed. Round here the stuff could strip your throat numb, if you let it. But it numbed other things. "Not too good, or too wise, maybe. But then it comes hard when your fairytale romance has you all set to fight off the dragon to save the pretty maid, and you wind up as the prince in 'Rapunzel' instead."

Blundering round blind waiting for the girl to show up and save you... and, in the version Momma used to tell, to land you with kids she said were yours. The Daaé looked like the loyal type, but by all the pictures she was a deep-hipped, high-blooded girl who must have been lonely in that marriage of theirs... and the youngster in those front-page snaps looked nothing like his father. Maybe it was better her husband didn't ask himself that particular question.

The thought brought with it not the usual wry inward humour but an unwanted jolt of regret, and Jos cursed himself for getting involved. Hadn't he learned that lesson years back? And hadn't it come hard enough?

"I had a girl once. Sally Speke. My Sal." Christ, he'd got to be drunker than he'd thought to be talking about this. "Long time ago now. I was just a kid, hustling to get along, and I'd gotten hired to look over a warehouse down on the East Side waterfront that was losing stock. River pirates, we called it: dry-land sharks, more like. I was in over my head, and I was so green I didn't even know it.

"It was Sally got me out of that when the gang came after me. She'd been on the East Side all her life, she was quick and smart and game as they come, and she tipped me the warning and got me away when her own brother laid out for me with a razor in his hand."

Not pretty, no, she'd never been pretty, with her thick black brows and heavy nose, but she had a laugh to set the rooftops dancing and lilting gray eyes that could sparkle or melt to steal your breath away. She'd been a half-starved wisp of a creature, all bones and fire and promise in his arms, but even back then she'd known what she wanted and gone for it without counting the cost. Only in those days... she'd set her heart on him.

"She couldn't go back after that, of course, but she didn't care. She'd set her sights on getting out and getting up, making something of herself, and I guess she wanted to make something out of me. She got me into night-classes and clean collars, working round the clock; she could soak up a book faster'n a freshman up at Yale, and understand it, too. But you should have seen her dance — heard her laugh..."

She could fight, too, real low stuff when she saw red. A time or two she'd set marks on Jos between the sheets, like the spitfire she'd been; two cents to a dime said she'd never told Steady Freddie about _that_.

"And I lost her." He slammed the lid on hot-breathing memories, crushing them back in the past where they belonged; all over, a done deal. "I couldn't be what she wanted. I got in with a fast crowd; gambled high, lost, gambled again. They were swells roughing it, and I was set on scraping together enough to wed — and Sal wanted me off with her to concerts and galleries every free hour she got, learning culture. Meeting people, when I was down in some den throwing away what little I had. And in the end — she met someone better for her than me."

Freddie Ashleigh, with the sharp crease in his white pants and the soft British accent. Freddie, who was going places when he, Jos, had shut his ears to Sal's pleas and was going down. Mr. and Mrs. Frederick Ashleigh, now, with their home in the West Village and their box at the Met. She'd been Sarah Ashleigh the last time he'd seen her, hair swept high and skirts swept back, lifting the youngest of her three perfect children into the carriage outside Macy's. Children that should have been his. Could once, in those airless summer nights, have been his.

"Guess I went to pieces after that." A shrug that brushed aside a year-long drunk, a spell or two in jail, and memories of happiness melting away like cotton candy the harder he clutched to keep them. He'd worked for the likes of Mr. Y, and blotted it out with cheap liquor. And all the time he'd been trashing everything Sal had tried to give him.

"It was Hammerstein that took a risk on me in the end and gave me another start, took me on as a trouble-shooter — private investigator, if you like. And he's done well enough by me since." He reached out abruptly across the table, catching the younger man by the arm. The remnants of his drink spilled, unheeded. "But you listen to me, Mr. Rowl. If there's a chance, even a chance that wife of yours still wants you, then you leave your pride in the dirt, you listen to what she says, and you go crawling back. Else you'll spend the rest of your days wishing on a might-have-been."

The other had stiffened up, and Jos remembered a shade late that Mr. Rowl maybe didn't care for being grabbed at without the proper etiquette. They weren't big on aristocrats — or etiquette — back where he, Jos, came from.

Well, this was America now and the guy would just have to get used to it. Which he hadn't made too hot a job of so far, by what the yellow papers said... but then you didn't get to be persnickety by drinking in a place like this.

Suicide Hall, they called it round here. And it wasn't on account of the rotgut liquor. Jos remembered his first impression of that ravaged face; softened the tone of what he'd been about to say, leaning back as the barkeep clinked empties together and wiped a cloth over the spilled dregs.

"And maybe along the way you could spare a thought for us. Hammerstein sent that contract in good faith, and there's a couple thousand guests waiting for Christine Daaé to step into the spotlight tomorrow night."

"You have not understood." Mr. Rowl was still rigid, the look in his eyes almost desperate. "She signed with him — she chose to sign with him. And the price is high, very high. It was twice what Hammerstein offered, and then I—"

He flushed, and Jos mentally filled in the rest. So he fancied himself his wife's manager, and had thought he'd driven a fine bargain. Easy for the likes of Mr. Y to promise a sky-high fee to lure the talent in, when the odds were he'd no intention of ever needing to pay up.

"And this is the guy who attacked you both, way back when? Who threatened murder back in France?" Jos kept his voice patient. "When you've quit beating yourself up, you could think to ask a question or two, maybe. Just what makes you so sure she signed of her own free choice?"

The rigid look had shifted to one of shock — at the suggestion or at the manner of it, Jos wasn't sure — and he pressed the point home. "Say I wanted to put pressure on Miss— on Madame— on your wife, what threat would I go for first? Your life? The kid's?"

"Gustave..." Cold realisation. It was as if he'd slapped Mr. Rowl in the face. "Gustave. Our son. This morning he was not to be found — I thought he had gone wandering — but she, Christine, she was of a sudden wild with panic. You think she feared that _he_ — that Mr. Y—"

He broke off. "A child... a child of ten years? Even he... surely he would not—"

"Who, Mr. Y?" Jos gave him a pitying look. "Pass up on a few little threats? What did you take him for, this 'monster' of yours — Santa Claus?"

He leaned in closer, dropping his voice without thinking. "Listen, Hammerstein owns the Victoria: the best vaudeville house in town. Maybe it's not opera, but it sure turns a profit. Young Mr. Willie runs it, and he's a hard nut himself.

"Now last year he had this vaudeville act booked. Ever heard of the Three Lavericks?... No, I guess you wouldn't. Well, they're just about the best knockabout act you ever did see: Pa, Ma, and a kid acrobat that got the audience splitting their sides. And Mr. Y set his sights on them for Phantasma.

"First Willie Hammerstein knows of it is when his top booking ups stakes and hightails it. See, the Three Lavericks weren't three any more; they were four. Mr. Y wouldn't touch the older kid — he won't lay a finger on the talent. But the little one... that was another story." He shrugged. "Mr. Willie was fit to bust a blood vessel; but there was nothing doing. The Three Lavericks signed with Mr. Y for the summer — and they haven't been back to New York State since. I guess Ma Laverick would sooner tour the boondocks than risk crossing Mr. Y."

Another shrug. "So your Gustave — seems to me he'd be a mighty fine lever on his mother. You say she changed her mind, kept the whole thing quiet, never told you it was him? Sounds to me like she was plain _scared_."

Silence, across the table. The young man had caught his breath; then words spilled loose.

"Christine..." And a soft spate of French that might have been a half-voiced prayer or a curse. "My Christine, afraid — alone — and I—"

He sent one hand raking through his hair with a groan, tried to thrust it back from his face, after, and all of a sudden came up onto his feet like a man who'd changed his mind. Too sudden. Drink had a nasty way of catching up on a man.

Jos shoved his own chair back in a hurry and made it round the table in time to catch him before he measured his length on the floor. The other swayed but kept his footing, and Jos, shorter and wiry, got one limp arm draped over his shoulder and took the weight with a lurch.

"Go easy, mister." He got Mr. Rowl upright again, though by the looks of it his world right now was swimming in a way that Jos remembered all too close and intimate. "Easy, kid, easy..."

With that sudden flush of resolve in his face — or maybe hope — with his fine collar hanging crooked and forelock slipping into his eyes, it was all too easy to see him for the moment as no more than a college kid; some sophomore or senior who'd gotten himself drunk over his best girl before he'd learned to hold his liquor.

Rich young idler, maybe, Jos told himself firmly, but for sure, no kid. The guy had been ten years wed with a wife and boy of his own to look after, and if he was sparing a thought beyond himself now then by his own account it was the first in a long while.

"I guess we'd better get you settled up and out of here. Just look at you—"

"Yes, look at me." A rueful echo. "A fine hero, am I not? And only hours in which to act—"

He swayed again and muttered something savage under his breath, dragging up a handful of change to throw on the bar. By the size of the sum, either he'd no idea of the worth of a dollar, or he'd had a sight more than was good for him. Likely both. The second went without saying, anyhow.

Jos sighed, glancing up at the eight-day clock over the door, in its cracked case. Close on midnight. Too late to call on the Daaé — and if he showed up with her husband in this state, the pair of them would likely get thrown out without a hearing.

"Looks like no-one gets to be a hero tonight." He shifted his grip, fishing for a couple of quarters to drop to the barkeep on his own account. "Come on. You'd best come back with me — you're in no state to be set loose. I guess you don't remember the name of your hotel?"

Carefully, oh so casual... like he hadn't spent a day trying to track the Daaé down already. They'd been shuttled in directly from the docks, of course, in a carriage sent by 'Hammerstein', but it was worth a try.

But he got nothing back save for ramblings about balconies and pilasters and assurances of getting there blindfold... which he was _not_ about to lay reliance on. He didn't aim to go wandering into the heart of Phantasma in the dark, not with a drunken Frenchman running off at the mouth all the while, and Mr. Y's enforcers keeping a sharp eye on the newest attraction — he'd been on the shady side of the law a time or two himself. He knew how these things worked.

Guess that put paid to any plan to pay a private call on his quarry without the husband in tow, then. With a heave, he got his burden headed on a general line for the exit. Best get word to McWhirter, and hope to slip in nice and quiet tomorrow. Maybe Mr. Rowl would be the ace in Hammerstein's hand after all... and maybe Jos would just get left holding the joker.

~o~

There were a couple of boys hanging round in the street, hoping for tips and pickings. He jerked a nod at the nearest.

"Here, you, boy — take a message? John McWhirter, West 38th St: tell him Jos Perlman's got the case in hand, and he'll see results tomorrow. Got that? Here's a nickel, and say I told you he'd give you another. Okay?"

He got a brilliant grin in response, white in the streetlights. "Yessir. Sure thing."

Jos watched him dash off, ragged legs pumping, and turned his attention back to his companion, who was showing signs of wanting to walk on his own. Time to get this one laid down on the couch to sleep it off.

Tomorrow better bring results. Time was getting mighty short for the Manhattan Opera.

* * *

Back inside, the barman yawned his way through the remainder of the night shift, watching the slowly-advancing hands of the clock and waiting for the morning clatter and bang of the back door that would announce cheery Bernie's arrival to take over.

Out on the pier, hours later, Meg Giry steeled herself for the daily plunge into icy waters by the cold grey light of dawn, striking out with steady strokes that sent her breasting through the waves until her breathing ached with salt and the chill had numbed her limbs and — almost — the ache in her heart.

Presently, changed and clean, she burst into the empty bar to bestow on Bernie her first bright professional grin of the day, in exchange for the hot coffee that he had waiting. She sat cradling the mug for a while until the shivers had stopped, then, with a sigh, got up to leave. No-one else came in.

And behind the counter, Mr. Y — who had staked a great deal on finding the Vicomte here in a suitably suggestible state — watched her go from the shadows, nursing fury that ebbed to a state of steadily increasing disquiet.


	4. Ah, Christine!

**Chapter 4: Ah, Christine!**

Even caught flushed and off-guard in her morning wrapper with a cup of coffee in one hand, Christine Daaé in the flesh was quite some lady. As exquisite as the room that framed her — why, if he hadn't had more sense, he might have thought the place had been designed express for the purpose. Hard to see how any man could have problems waking up next to _that_ , Jos thought, unguarded... then took stock of the set unhappiness in her eyes that was a constant silent reproach.

Plain enough to see that this wasn't the first time she'd heard her husband slip in ashamed over morning coffee, either. When she'd glanced up, it wasn't the face of a woman who'd spent the night worrying and waiting. It was the weary look of the wife who'd known better than to expect him back at all.

It was clear from the way she jumped to her feet, coloring up, that she hadn't been counting on Jos, though. And while it wasn't the first time, in his line of work, that he'd pushed his way into a couple's rooms before breakfast on the husband's account, it was the first time he'd gotten a look that made him think twice about whether it had been such a hot idea.

Mr. Rowl had been all for some scheme of tackling Christine at the last minute, right before the Phantasma show. Setting aside that Jos didn't share the other man's conviction of Mr. Y's powers to somehow scotch their plans if given time, that set-up wouldn't suit Hammerstein's outfit at all. The Manhattan Opera needed to know if it still had a star, and as quick as might be — if only to see to it that Jos Perlman stayed in a job.

And so he'd gotten his guest up off the couch bright and early and scrubbed clean. In cold water, less to sober him up than because the geyser in the apartment was on the blink. On the way across town they'd picked up breakfast, a couple of shaves, and a clean collar. The Frenchman had swallowed down two of Dinny Halloran's pick-me-up powders, and kept them down, and if he'd been a mite green about the gills he'd said nothing about the jackhammer that had to be pounding behind his eyes when he woke. And Jos had done his best to neaten up the rest in the elevator.

He'd made a good job of it, he thought now, watching Christine Daaé's eyes widen as she took in her husband, and turning his mind back to the broken-down drunk he'd stumbled across last night. He'd made a good job of it... and health, looks, and a spark of hope had done the rest.

" _Mais, Raoul_ —" she burst out in surprise, and got an answer back that was a gallantry if ever he'd heard one, in a language folks said was made for the purpose. Momentarily forgotten, Jos took the opportunity to cough.

"Sorry to intrude, ma'am. But I ran across your husband here last night"—no need to say how; no fool, the Daaé, she'd probably guessed—"and I got a notion from him that you might be amenable to hearing what my employer has to say. My name's Jos Perlman. And I work for a gent by the name of Oscar Hammerstein."

He got a glance of something like disbelief before her eyes flickered back to her husband in amazement. "Last night, in fact — there _was_ a Hammerstein?"

Her English was a shade better than his, it seemed to Jos, though he had to allow they were both fair at it for foreigners. But on her, the accent was enchanting.

He was fast forming the view that just about anything Miss Daaé did was enchanting. No wonder Mr. Y had set his sights on her... and small wonder she'd gotten her poor devil of a husband tied up in knots. How could a guy hope to live up to that kind of perfection, save he had a head swelled to fit the crown on Lady Liberty?

Her obvious doubt was none too flattering, though. "Sure, there's a Hammerstein—"

He drew breath, and Mr. Rowl broke in.

"Christine, there was always a Hammerstein; he has been seeking us since we came. It was the notes, the meetings, the carriage, all that which was false. Which was _him_." His voice cracked. "Listen, you must hear me. I understand now why you would do this: the secrecy, the threats, the danger to our son—"

"Gustave?" She too sounded shaken. "This is... about Gustave? You truly..."

"Care?" Silence you could have cut with a knife; even Jos caught the flinch. "I have deserved that, have I not? Yes, then, Madame de Chagny— Mister Perlman— I care. I care when my son must pay for his father's folly. I care when an enemy dares to lay hands on a child. And — though I would gladly wring him by the neck, often and often — I care for Gustave, the one being who still brings laughter to our house. Is that so hard to believe?"

The Daaé's eyes had filled with tears. She was not the only one.

"Your husband's right," Jos said softly, after a decent interval. "You don't have to go ahead with this. Hammerstein wants you — Hammerstein needs you. There's a gala tonight with your name on the bill, and the cream of Manhattan waiting. We can get you and the kid out of here, guarantee protection—"

"You do not understand." She wiped at her eyes almost fiercely, and caught a tear as it started to fall. "Things have changed, and I... I cannot just leave. Not now. I— I made a promise."

"A promise under force?" Her husband brushed that aside. "You know that it counts for nothing."

"And..." Jos coughed again. "In any case, ma'am, I guess you could say you promised Hammerstein already."

"But... the money." Both hands gripped the back of her chair as she stared from one to the other of them, looking astonished. "Raoul, you told me he would pay three times what Hammerstein offered. Enough to repay everything we owe, and more. And now—"

Her husband came quickly across the room and caught her two hands in his.

"We came across the sea for what Hammerstein will pay, did we not? It sufficed then; it can suffice now. It will pay the sums that are most urgent so that we can rest both ears on the pillow." He pulled her closer until she was gazing up into his face, her eyes searching his own. "Christine, Christine... in our marriage I have no pride left, only shame. But do you think it of me truly, that had I known— that in my own right mind I would ever seek to sell you back into his power for _money_ ; for any money at all? Come away from here with me, and I swear to you, I promise you that things will change. For you and for Gustave. _Si tu m'aimes encore — ah ça! écoute-moi, Christine, bien-aimée_ —"

From there on in they might as well have been alone together for all that Jos could make out, though the tone of it was clear enough; the flood-gates had broken in more senses than one, and things were being said in that outpouring of French that should have been put into words long since. Said on both sides, by the sound of it... and after a while when it looked like the two of them had clean forgotten he was there, the set-up got a mite uncomfortable.

Watching a couple locked in each other's arms hadn't ever been his idea of spectator sport. He tried another discreet cough, sighed, and removed himself politely behind the screen in the corner. It was more to secure his own peace of mind than for any concern over theirs.

After a time, when the murmuring had shifted from passionate to something more domesticated, he risked a cautious peek. A peal of laughter from Christine Daaé greeted him.

"Mister Perlman, you must forgive... I think we have embarrassed you."

They had, but... in that moment he would have forgiven anything. If she'd been enchanting with sad eyes, it seemed to him she was nothing short of adorable when she laughed. Her hair was tumbling down over one shoulder, and if her husband had looked ten years younger and vulnerable last night, right now — hand in hand, and seemingly unaware of it — the two of them together struck him as nothing more than a pair of kids who might at any minute go pelting breakneck down the street out of pure excitement. Save, he amended mentally, that they were kids who'd clearly just worked out the difference between boys and girls, and weren't about to forget it in a hurry.

His own face had split in a somewhat sheepish grin, and he got a smile back from her in return that was an overspill of happiness you could warm your hands by. Jos looked away with a conscious effort, and cleared his throat. "Well, if your lady wife's agreeable to the idea, Mr. Rowl—"

" _Mister Rowl?_ " For a moment she stared between them blankly; then she broke into fresh laughter. "Oh, the steward— Raoul, I had forgotten—"

It sounded... different when she said it, Jos allowed, flushing. More French. But she came towards him with such a pretty air of apology that he couldn't hold the mockery against her.

"Truly, you must forgive me; it is... shock, I think." She laughed again, a little helplessly, and slipped her arm through his. They were much of a height, and she was smiling straight into his eyes. It was something like being struck by a sledgehammer, or else downing a quart of forty-proof; Jos caught his breath on the crazy thought that a guy could make his fortune if he could somehow bottle her. Essence of Daaé, guaranteed... or should that be "Mrs. Rowl"?

He had to choke down a fit of the chuckles under the show of a strangulated cough. He sure was getting light-headed...

Christine looked at him a little anxiously, pressing him down into a chair, and he waved a hand in reassurance. "I'm fine, I'm okay. Listen, ma'am, we've got to get you out of here. Get the boy away somewhere safe—"

"Where is Gustave now?" Mr. Rowl's voice was urgent, and his wife was clearly bemused.

"In bed..." She glanced round to the inner door of the suite, which was still firmly shut. "Still asleep, or at least I hope it. You know that he has bad dreams — and for him yesterday was a little hard to bear."

She'd gone a shade paler, like she'd remembered something she didn't much care for, and now she caught at her husband's arm. "But, Raoul, he is in no danger, I swear it! _He_ would not hurt him, not one hair of his head. And if we leave—"

Neither of the two men could make head or tail of this. Jos got to his feet, frowning. "But Mr. Y did use threats on Gustave to get you to sing — right?"

"Yes, but—"

"And you believed him? You were angry and scared?"

"Yes, but—" She had let go of her husband's sleeve, and her hands were twisting together now. "Please, you must believe me... things have changed."

Jos knew evasion when he saw it, and it hurt a little; he'd been dumb enough to think better of her.

"I guess you're going to have to explain, ma'am." He made it as gentle as he could. "There's a lot riding on this... and the safety of the kid besides."

"Christine, he hates us!" Her husband's shoulders had tensed right up, and his hands were clenched. "What is it that has changed? How can you be so sure?"

"He does not hate us. He— he is desperate, that is all." She bit her lip. Jos saw the half-truth coming, and winced. "And yesterday, he... he heard Gustave sing."

"Is he so good, then?" Jos thought back to the Laverick kid: the best little deadpan acrobat he'd ever seen. Mr. Y wouldn't lay a finger on the talent, that was one thing everyone knew. But the talent in this act was the Daaé herself. "Gustave — is he that good?"

"Raoul does not think so." She smiled a little at her husband's flushed protest, and dealt him a loving look. "Gustave is a child, Mister Perlman, and he sings as a child. But for a child, he has promise. And he has my voice: the voice that _he_ has sought across all these years. Yes, there were threats, but... they will not happen now. Gustave is as safe as... as I."

It was plausible enough. Jos admitted to himself, slowly, that it could even be true. But experience told him there was something very wrong about that kid that his mother was covering up.

Still, it was none of his business. All McWhirter cared about was for him to get her to sing. And she couldn't stay here, where Mr. Y could put the kibosh on the whole affair the moment he got wind of it.

He put the pressure on, not too hard at first, dropping a word or two about 'artistic honor' and a waiting audience and mentioning Signor Bonci, booked expressly to star with the great Daaé. Then he slipped out the Hammerstein contract with the Vicomte's name already on the bottom where the cash was concerned, just waiting for the artiste herself to sign. And her husband put his arms round her with soft words and straight out implored her not to let Mr. Y catch her voice back into his old snare.

"When you sing for him, you are no more yourself — you know it! I beg of you—"

Christine Daaé tore herself loose and backed away from them both, eyes wide like a wild thing in pain. "Snares, traps... you see him still as a monster, both of you, a great spider above us all with victims in his web. But if he is a monster, it is one we too helped make... and beneath the cunning and the rage there is a man, a man alone in the dark with only music as salvation. I gave him my word, not for fear but for love and pity's sake. One song. One single song, Raoul, then we are free to start again as it should have been. I promised this one thing, so very little — and to him it is so very much."

A loyal type, the Daaé. Too loyal for her own good. Jos had his own views on quick-made millionaires with fraud and blackmail as their stock in trade, but he kept that part to himself. He'd just had a notion.

"Say... just what did you promise? A performance, right? His music — your voice?"

An uncertain nod. Jos looked across and caught Mr. Rowl's eye, unable to keep the grin from his voice any longer. "But I'm guessing he never said _where_..."

For a moment they traded glances, the full possibilities sinking in; then the other man let out a kind of a whoop and made as if to fling himself upon Jos's neck. Jos sidestepped hastily and found his hand enveloped in an enthusiastic grasp.

"My friend, that is sublime! Of course! She will sing at the Manhattan Opera — and we shall simply send him an invitation."

Christine had gasped, as if caught between hope and fear. "Oh— do you think—"

"A ticket?" Jos nodded. "Sure. McWhirter — my boss — he'll fix it. Might have to be the gallery though; the best seats are all sold out."

She shook her head quickly, eyes cast down. "No, the gallery, it would be better — for _him_. He cannot be seen..."

Her husband murmured something that sounded like 'lodge number five', and she turned on him. "And Raoul, there will be no police! If he comes, then he comes; he has done nothing to harm us. Not this time."

She got a eloquent shrug in response, but right then Jos had the feeling the young man with the dancing eyes would have agreed to anything.

"Of course. If we are to forgive him Gustave"—a tiny flinch from the Daaé that betrayed more to the watcher than to the oblivious pair—"then it seems the victim here is Hammerstein. And if it agrees to him—"

"Oh, Hammerstein won't take action against Mr. Y," Jos assured them. Beneath old Oscar's dignity, for one thing, to admit he'd been a rival for the Daaé's charms with the owner of a Coney Island show. And for another, said freak-show owner had bought himself a sight too many connections up at Tammany Hall.

He looked from one to the other. "Then it's decided?"

"I greatly hope he does not come," Mr. Rowl admitted, with a rueful glance at his wife. "But yes — agreed."

Christine Daaé said nothing at all. But she took the contract Jos held out to her, and the pen he uncapped with a flourish from his pocket, and signed her name — her married name, he noted with interest — beneath the dotted line. Then she smiled at him suddenly, and leant forward to kiss him very gravely on the cheek.


	5. Before the Performance

**Chapter 5: Before the Performance**

There were police at the Manhattan Opera in the end, that night. Not in the auditorium or outside the gallery entrance — the Daaé had scribbled a note for McWhirter to enclose with the ticket, promising there would be no trap, and she was dead-set on keeping her word — but outside the star dressing room, where a couple of big cops tapped nightsticks lightly on their holsters like they were just spoiling for someone to start making trouble.

If Mr. Y took a fancy to try something, of course, it wouldn't be that crude. Jos could have told them that, and Miss Daaé had to know it better than any. But if fixing up protection for her with the management made her husband feel warm and wanted — well, it was no business of his how the theater was run. For Jos Perlman, the job had ended at ten o'clock this morning, when he produced the missing artiste and her party at the door of McWhirter's office, signed, sealed and delivered. Another foul-up cleared; another disaster averted. His specialty. He'd gotten a fat commission out of it, too... and if at half six that evening he found himself paying a backstage call at the opera house, then it was purely on his own account. Besides, he told himself, he had to make sure she'd gotten everything she needed after their little undercover exit.

They'd pulled off the vanishing act by broad daylight. Lucky for him Coney wasn't much of a morning place; he'd packed a single bag with essentials, raided the hotel laundry, and smuggled the family out by the service entrance in used staff uniforms, one by one. If Christine Daaé set a foot out of her suite, he'd lay odds Mr. Y would have known about it within ten minutes: maybe less. But if a chambermaid, bell-hop or a sleepy night-shift porter took a quick rain-check out the back, surveillance wouldn't turn a hair. And they hadn't.

He'd gotten a good look at little Gustave — "not so little", as the Vicomte had added proudly — in the process, too. The kid had taken to the whole adventure like a duck to water, and announced he was aiming to be apprenticed to Jos when he grew up; he was a bright type and sweet-tempered with it, and Jos took to him at once. Given the problems Mr. Rowl had admitted last night, though — and a few observations of his own — it was hard for an outsider to avoid one all-too-obvious conclusion.

He wondered if Christine regretted it. He wondered if Sal— _No._ Time to clamp down on that idea, and fast. Christ, he'd thought he'd gotten over this; he'd have sworn she hadn't crossed his mind in years.

He'd let Mr. Rowl get to him, that was the thing. Let himself get involved, let himself care when he'd sworn off caring. And Sal... Sal would have loved this morning's stunt. Sal would have found a way to slip the baggage out as well, with monogrammed cases in full view, French steamer labels and all. She'd come up with crazier plans to hide the pair of them, way back when.

Maybe she'd be out there tonight. Freddie was a subscriber at the Met, but that didn't mean much; an opera house didn't get loyalty like a baseball team. Half the buzz coming from up in front right now was from rich socialites comparing the new accommodations with their regular boxes at the Met, and swapping gossip about the models for the painting in the dome above, and the fancy harps old Oscar had used for bannisters. Maybe she was sitting there next to Freddie, nudging lightly against his knee...

With an effort, Jos got an iron grip on his imagination, nodded to the cops either side the door, and gave it a firm rap just below the big brass number 1. He'd half-expected to see an actual star, like in the picture papers; it was a shade disappointing.

"It's me — Jos."

Low voices from inside, and a laugh.

"Enter!" the child's voice sang out cheerfully, echoed an instant later by Mr. Rowl, and Jos went ahead and did just that, with an inward grin.

The dressing room looked like a whirlwind had hit it. Borrowed costumes were draped here, there and everywhere; seemingly the Daaé had found one in the end that fit, some kind of gathered silver concoction, but he couldn't make out much of it from where she sat, save for the plunging dip at the back of her neck and the soft lace around her throat in the mirror. Already half made-up, she didn't turn when he came in but went on applying tinted powder with a steady hand. But her eyes met his in the reflection, and smiled.

She'd been a beauty on the promotional posters. She'd been enchantingly flushed and young when taken off-guard over breakfast. But seated at the heart of the theater, in the place where she belonged, she fairly glowed — and whatever he told himself, it was more than just the lights burning on either side of the dressing-table glass...

Gustave, who'd been standing next to her, had bounced round when Jos came in, his face lighting up with excitement. For a moment it looked like he'd come running over; but his father, standing behind the two of them, laid a hand on his shoulder, and instead he stood up straight and made a smart little bow, very high-bred but kind of cute.

His mother, laughing, held out a hand, palm upward, for some box the kid was clutching, and said something in French. Jewels sparkled as she opened it, and Jos caught his breath.

Earrings. Big ones — and if he knew anything about jewelry, not paste but real. The Daaé would be wearing a fortune in her ears tonight.

"Borrowed," Mr. Rowl said softly, his mouth crooking upwards, as the earrings were set carefully in place. But his smile turned rueful. "Your people here, they have been most generous... and the best of Christine's jewels were in any case long since sold."

Jos raised an eyebrow, trading back the unspoken thought in a shared glance: better, maybe, to arrive a penniless diva than a threadbare one. And easier on the family pride.

Still, he'd have to get that baggage back out of Phantasma for her some time. Maybe Mr. Y would do the decent thing and send in the reckoning for McWhirter to pay accommodation, and they could all just let on he'd done Hammerstein a favor by putting up his artistes overnight. Sure, right?

The Daaé had slipped in the earrings, and her husband bent to help fasten the circlet of diamonds that went with them; simple but pricy, to Jos's expert eye. In diamonds with her silver gown she'd be pure crystal elegance on stage tonight. It occurred to him, briefly, to wonder just what kind of outfit Mr. Y had planned for her to wear in front of the crowds who came to Phantasma for spangles on high-kicking showgirls. He'd have had something planned that would catch the eye — ostrich feathers, maybe...

The audience here would be a cut above that — he hoped. Not his department, if he was honest. Never had been. Sal... Sal would have known.

The necklace was fixed at last. Mr. Rowl leaned across to murmur something in her ear, a brush of breath across her neck that brought a faint blush beneath the powder on her cheeks, and the glimpse of an upturned dimple in the mirror.

"You must tell my husband that he is being very young and foolish tonight, Mister Perlman." She gathered up her skirts and rose from the dressing-table, turning to laugh at them both. "As foolish as when we first met!"

"And how can that be helped, madame," came the gallant retort, "when it is plain to see you are not one year older—"

"Than fourteen?" Her face had lit up with mischief, and just for a moment Jos wouldn't have cared to give odds whether she had in mind to get a kiss out of her husband or a box on the ear. He coughed, hastily, and got a saucy look in return. "We met as children, you see. It was a rescue of the most heroic — but wet!"

A brisk double rap on the door, and a shout came from a stagehand outside; the teasing looks on both sides were wiped away of a sudden with a snap that was almost comic. Mr. Rowl pulled out his watch and shut it again quickly.

"Jos, you must pardon us. Gustave and me, we have seats in the center, next to the Mayor — I wish that you could be with us, but..."

Jos shrugged it off.

"Sure, I know. Those tickets were a done deal weeks back, before you left France." And the Mayor's face'd be worth a fair few dollars at the notion of sitting by the hired help, anyways. "Besides, I'm not cut out for it."

He didn't own a smart opera suit like the one they'd got even the kid in... and he hadn't been planning on attending the performance. He hadn't precisely been planning on calling in here. He'd been passing on impulse, he told himself, just impulse — but maybe he ought to hear her sing, just the once, after all.

He gave Gustave a reassuring grin. "Your Ma'll see me safe with a place in the wings — won't you, ma'am? Best place in the house, just for your guardian angel: yours truly."

Gustave looked more than a touch confused; Jos remembered belatedly that the kid was only ten and had most likely gotten all his English out of stiff-spoken books. But the other two had shared a quick glance. Christine bit her lip and wrapped her arms closer, leaning into her husband, who'd taken an almost unthinking step towards her, and Jos stiffened up. "What? What did I—?"

"Maybe... not Angel— or Guardian—" Mr. Rowl managed after a short breath, with a shrug that was an apology. "Just... Jos." He smiled a little, and it reached his eyes for real a moment after. "'Just'? No, my friend — always and very much Jos!" And this time, before he could dodge, the owner of that name found a swift hard embrace flung around his shoulders a couple of brief paces later.

Then, before a stunned Jos could react, he'd been released. The Vicomte ruffled a hand through Gustave's hair, and exchanged a grin with the kid. " _Allons, mon vieux_ "—a sweeping gesture to the door— " _vas-y!_ "

And they were gone.


	6. Jos Confronts Christine

Chapter 6: Jos Confronts Christine

"He thinks the world of you," Christine said softly, with a glance at the door. "I am so very grateful."

And the smart thing to do would have been to leave it there. Take his thanks and go, and leave the lady to sing opera in peace for Hammerstein and the rest, with warm feelings all round. Only... he liked the pair of them, and maybe they were owed something more than that. Than just the easy way out.

"Nice guy — when he's sober," Jos said with a sigh. "What d'you reckon his chances at of staying that way? And... was there something you were planning on telling him sometime about the kid?"

"About— No. Oh no." The lovely glow in the way she looked at him was gone, cut off like he'd slapped her in the face, just the way he'd known it would. And he was every bit as sorry for it as he'd known he'd be.

"Does he— did he—" Almost panic in her voice now. "Who told you?"

"You did," Jos said quietly, the way he'd said it to so many others. Back when it had been just a job... "Just now."

She was a brave creature, the Daaé. She didn't weep, or faint, or curse at him the way the guys he nailed often did. She stood there with that distant, hurt little look... and then she sat down again in front of the mirror with her head in her hand, all silver and crystal like teardrops frozen into silk.

"Yes, it's true. Gustave... Raoul is not his father. Is it— so easy, then, to see?"

He could give her that comfort, at least. "There's no likeness... but no, ma'am. I wondered, from things your husband let out last night. Then I saw the way you acted around talk of him this morning — and then I met the kid up close. But if I hadn't known, from Mr. Rowl... well, I guess I wouldn't have thought to ask myself in the first place."

She stood; turned, head held high with that arc of sparkling stones across the soft slopes of her throat. "Then I must take more care, Mister Perlman: I love my husband."

It was a challenge flung down — daring him to do his worst — and Jos sidestepped. He didn't want to hurt them; hadn't ever wanted it. "Sure. I can see you do... but the thing is, that's just what the guy has been busy beating himself up over, these last ten years. It takes more than that to make a marriage, and if you spend the rest of your lives together living a lie... what's it going to do to you? And to him, if the time comes he finds out?"

"And do you think, then, it would be kind in me — would make my poor Raoul feel more a husband — for him to learn that he could not even manage one heir, one child? Do you think that small shred of self-belief means nothing, then, to him?" Her eyes were fierce, but it was not in her own defence. "And Gustave, who has known no other father — the little Vicomte, who will take Raoul's place one day? How would he feel, to be branded as a bastard and a fraud?"

Her cheeks flamed suddenly as if the coarse words had burned her, but she'd brought them out without a stammer, and she was still glaring him down. It came to him suddenly that she'd look just that way on the stage: a pagan priestess calling down victory, or a fallen woman flinging defiance in her seducer's face. In this small space, with barely a yard or two between them, it was nothing short of magnificent.

So he kept his tongue between his teeth on the subject of Gustave and his ambitions... which didn't, right now, look like including any kind of title. And Christine Daaé's chin came down a little as her eyes fell.

"And Gustave at least, he must not know. That promise I have made — to the single man who has the right to ask it."

And if that promise had gone along with the other one she'd spoken of, Jos told himself wryly — and he rather thought it had — she'd just given him the last piece in the puzzle without the asking. Which, now that he came to look back on it, sure did explain a lot...

"I still reckon you ought to tell him," he said quietly. And they both knew it wasn't the kid he had in mind.

Christine sighed, with that same little eloquent shrug he'd always associate, now, with Mr. Rowl. "Perhaps. When the time is right, and we are back in France..."

"You're not staying, then? Beyond the contract?" Fool that he was, he'd had no reason to think it; but he knew now that somehow he'd hoped.

She was shaking her head, smiling a little, now, but sadly.

"Yours is a young country, and soon you will have great singers of your own, like Miss Mary Garden who so much delighted us in Paris. Besides, now..." She colored up a touch, and her fingers were very busy, of a sudden, smoothing out the lace at her throat. "We have hopes, Raoul and I, and if... if it comes to pass, then I would wish to be at home."

A loud bang on the door from outside; they both looked round with a jump. "Ten minutes, Miss Daaé. I thought I heard shouting — you sure you're okay in there?"

"Thank you, yes," Christine called firmly, turning back to Jos with a gesture of apology. "I am sorry; they are a little... zealous."

"I guess that's another reason not to stay in New York," Jos observed, his voice a trifle dry. "You're apt to be looking over your shoulder the whole time."

A shake of the head. "A promise was made to me also: that we should go free. But it is hard to live always with the ghosts of the past..."

Her eyes, on a level with his, were very clear and kind. "Forgive me, but— is she here tonight? Your Sally?"

It was like a punch to the gut. And, from her, he'd deserved it. For a moment he couldn't find any words at all — and he didn't _know_ , anyhow. He truly didn't know.

"He told you?" It came out higher than he'd wanted, but it was all he could manage.

Dumb question, anyhow. They both knew the answer.

But she nodded.

"I do not think it was a betrayal, but if it is, then I am sorry... Listen." She reached out and took his hands between both of her own, curling small, soft fingers round them tightly.

"You do not have to stop caring. I can't tell you to do that — no-one can. But you must think of her with a life of her own: happy, sad, rich or poor, with a careless husband or quarrelling children... it does not matter. What matters is that it is _her_ life, it is now and not then, it is not memory but living, breathing choice, every hour of every day. The past cannot be taken from you — you cannot lose it, and she would not want it wiped away. But you cannot keep Sally, the real Sally, locked within the walls of those years long ago. The woman in the memories, the one you love — she is only a shell of something that has long since left and grown. There are so many years that are hers now... and if you love her, if you truly love her, then you must love those too. And if you cannot— then she is gone. I am so sorry, but she is gone."

Her great dark eyes were full of tears — tears for _him_ — and somehow it didn't matter that he couldn't say a word. That the dressing-room blurred as he choked up, with his face down on her shoulder and her hands cool and gentle in his hair.

Christine Daaé held him. And then she raised him up and kissed him, long and slow and sweet, and laid her cheek against his own where it was still wet.

"There will be a place for you on the left-hand side of the stage, in the wings. If you want it. And I— I have a promise also to keep..."

She turned back again for an instant at the door, with a smile. Then it had closed, and he was alone. Alone with the memory of a woman's mouth on his, and the knowledge she had set in his heart... and a man's warm embrace to keep him company along that road.

* * *

The gala night that preceded the opening of Mr. Oscar Hammerstein's new Manhattan Opera House was universally accounted to have been a success, by every paper from the stately _New York Times_ (which devoted a column and a half to the occasion, and to a list of the notables who had attended) all the way down to the breathless paragraphs of Lindy Weiss at the _Sun-Star_ , who'd been among the standees at the rear rail. The crush was immense, but the view from every part of the theater was pronounced admirable, and the acoustic ideal. The crowd encompassed every walk of life, from the factory-worker and his sweetheart in plain blouse and shirt-waist to the Weatherbees and Guggenheims in aigrettes and pearls, and the upper tiers were as appreciative of the performances on display as were those in the orchestra stalls.

The Daaé was voted a hit: a most tremendous hit, and the unquestioned star of the evening. Together with the tenor whom Hammerstein had engaged for the purpose, Signor Alessandro Bonci, a distinguished artiste likewise making his début upon these shores, she enchanted the audience with a series of ravishing duets in which there was no rivalry, but only the greatest of admiration and support on the part of both singers. But it was undoubtedly Miss Daaé for whom the audience rose in applause, and whom Bonci led forward with a bow to take her place center-stage for the solo part of the program.

A slim silver figure alone beneath the lights, she clasped her hands at her breast and sang from the heart, her voice soaring to fill that great space without effort and without a flaw. She sang Manon, Leïla, Juliette, Marguerite — all those roles with which French opera is so richly endowed — and turned her peerless instrument at last to the celebrated mad scene from that work by Bellini with which the Opera House, as yet incomplete, was to open in two scant weeks: Elvira's aria " _Qui la voce sua soave_ ". As the high echoes of that last note fell from the air, sweet and impossibly pure, the audience seemed to hold its breath. Then it erupted with a roar of acclaim.

The Daaé's reputation, for those who still doubted, was assured. She took bow after bow until a bouquet of flowers was handed up across the footlights by her small son with his father's assistance, to the laughter and delight of spectators and soprano alike. And then, as cries arose for an encore, she begged — and received — silence.

The simple aria which Christine Daaé introduced to Manhattan society that night was the same which has since attained such popular renown, and which one may hear upon the lips of any errand-boy whistling down the street. It is said to sell a thousand copies a week still, and its pseudonymous composer — "W.X.Y." — is believed to have an opera in preparation, in which much interest has been expressed. But on that day of the gala, with the orchestra playing from improvised parts and the notes swelling from the Daaé's throat across a vast hushed crowd, it fell as a sensation upon an eager world to which it was still completely unknown.

She sent her soul out over the audience as a gift. And on the highest balcony in the third tier that stretched up into the shadows, huddled beneath a hat and long coat despite the heat, a shrouded watcher sat silent and still, gazing down upon the silver flame of that tiny, distant figure on the stage as if there were nothing else in the whole world. She sang for him, and for him only. One last time, as she had given her word she would.

And if he too wept, it was not the greatest miracle of that night, but only the last and the latest. For he would have perhaps the hardest path to travel of them all.

* * *

.*.*.*.

* * *

 _(A/N: The Manhattan Opera House opened, after some delay, with a performance of **I Puritani** featuring Alessandro Bonci and Regina Pinkert in the leading parts, to the latter of whom I must apologise for here usurping her role!_

 _The aria "Qui la voce sua suave" (Here his sweet voice called me) is here recorded ten years later by Amelita Galli-Curci, who had married, like Christine, into the aristocracy; the quality at the beginning of the hundred-year-old recording is a little ropy, but the sweetness and clarity of Galli-Curci's voice in the coloratura section show just what could be expected from a top soprano of the era. Delete plus signs for link — https:+/+/www+.+youtube+.+com+/+watch?v=reZxcjqrsQc )_


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